Midterm Presentation: Oxnard and Sites of Toxic Releases

As Antonia and I continue to explore toxic facilities within Oxnard and Malibu we have shifted our methods and goals. Initially inspired by UCLA's Toxic Tides project and focus on enviromental justice, we are now taking a closer look at the EPA's TRI (toxic release inventory) that gives us data on sites of toxic releases within Calfornia. For the purpose of our research we are taking a closer look at Oxnard (a predominantely Latinx community) and the greater Los Angeles area.

Not only does the TRI site give us meaningful data, it also gives us insight and reseach into the impacts of toxic releases. A "release" is a an exposure of a chemical means that it is emitted to the air or water, or placed in some type of land disposal. TRI tracks the management of certain toxic chemicals that may pose a threat to human health and the environment. U.S. facilities in different industry sectors must report annually how much of each chemical is released to the environment. In general, chemicals covered by the TRI Program are those that may cause Cancer or other chronic human health effects, significant adverse acute human health effects and significant adverse environmental effects.

Antonia and I are beginning to see what these trends look like on a smaller spatial scale, looking at individual cities and attempting to use an enviromental justice framework that observes the communities being diproportionately affected.

Does the socio-economic demographics of an area correlate with the disproportionate distribution of toxic facility waste, especially in identified disadvantaged communities, that are environmental injustice concerns?

Sources/Data

Plot Map of Toxic Release Facilities

Toxic Releases in Oxnard, categorized by Industry Sector

Chart Difference in Waste Release per Facility in Oxnard, CA

Toxic Releases in Los Angeles, categorized by Industry Sector

Interactive Map of Toxic Releases in Oxnard

The map help us visualize the location and spread/clustering of toxic releases and the bar graph lets us take a closer look at the most prominent types of toxic industry in this city.

Here something was off with my csv file and I had to look up what code could fix a "recursion," error

Interactive Map of Toxic Releases in Los Angeles

The map of toxic releases in Los Angeles helps us see where most of the industry clusters, we can see that there is a lot more toxic releases in East LA than West LA. The bar graph allows us to further examine the most prominent types of industry sectors and toxic releases.

Mapping the Racial Population Around the TRI Facility with the Largest Releases

Mapping the Racial Population Around the TRI Facility with the Largest Releases

As we look at next steps we are looking to continue mapping the proximty from the most polluting facilties to residential areas in Oxnard.

Data research and sourcing by Antonia Izuogu and Lupe Velez. Introduction, Interactive Maps and Sectory Type bar graphs by Lupe Velez Weight Bar Graphs, Isochrone Map and Next Steps by Antonia Izuogu